1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to parking assist apparatuses and, more particularly, to a parking assist apparatus which guides a vehicle to a target parking position using an actual image of a surrounding area of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known a parking assist apparatus that displays a target parking position designation display on a picture which displays a surrounding area of a vehicle so that a driver of the vehicle can designate the a target position at which the vehicle is to be parked by an operation on the picture. Such a parking assist apparatus is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Application No. 11-208420. In such a parking assist apparatus, a path to the target parking position is generated by computation and the vehicle is guided along the generated path. Additionally, if a target parking position once designated is changed by an operation on the display for designating a target parking position, a path to the changed target parking position is computed again and the vehicle is guided along the recomputed path. Thus, according to the above-mentioned parking assist apparatus, when a target parting position is reset, the vehicle can be guided along a new path to the reset target parking position.
When using the above-mentioned parking assist apparatus, there may be a case in which vehicle guidance is stopped when an inappropriate condition is detected such as that a vehicle speed exceeds an upper limit or that steering of the vehicle is performed intentionally by a driver, in view of maintaining safety during the vehicle guidance or assuring that the trace of the vehicle accurately match the computed path. When the vehicle guidance is stopped, simultaneously, information regarding the position (on absolute coordinates) of the target parking position on a road surface to which the vehicle has been guided, that is, at which the vehicle was to be parked may be eliminated. However, after the position information regarding the target parking position is eliminated, there may be a case that a drive of the vehicle desires to guide the vehicle to the absolute position of the target parking position which has been eliminated. In such a case, it is necessary for the driver to redo the designation of the target parking position from the beginning again by an operation on the display for designating a target parking position. For this reason, in the conventional parking assist apparatus, it may be inconvenient for a driver to perform a resetting operation after vehicle guidance is once stopped.